


Sticky Notes

by F-117 Nighthawk (F117_Nighthawk)



Series: Dark Matter [21]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Family Fluff, Family Shenanigans, Fluff, Gen, Hugs, Keith & Shiro (Voltron) are Adoptive Siblings, Post-Canon, Post-it Notes, Space Facts, Worldbuilding, except it's post my canon, y'all get to meet Zoé because she hasn't left my head for the past few days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 14:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20341453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/F117_Nighthawk/pseuds/F-117%20Nighthawk
Summary: Keith is bored waiting for Shiro and Allura to finish up a meeting with Earth's leaders. Zoé comes to an unexpected rescue.





	Sticky Notes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carthix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carthix/gifts).

> this is so very very far in the future. I wasn't intending to write anything featuring Zoé for a while, but Carthix sent me [this post](https://noussommeslessquelettes.tumblr.com/post/187086245671/incorrect-voltron-quote-lance-keith-figured-out) and this was about the only place it could fit.

Keith kicked his legs under the desk as he swung them, managing to whack Adam in the shin. Adam gave him a halfhearted glare over his grading. “You’re acting like Zoé.”

“Am not.”

_ “Keith.” _

“What? I’m bored. We came here to pick everyone up for your little summer vacation but apparently Shiro’s still stuck in meetings and Sam and Pidge kicked me out of the labs so we’re not leaving anytime soon and I’m _ bored.” _

“You’re _ twenty-six. _ Surely you know how to entertain yourself.”

“I tried.”

Adam sighed and set his datapad down on his desk. Slightly desperate for a few uninterrupted minutes, he cast around his office for something to distract his brother-in-law because _ apparently _ Keith was the same age as his _ eight year old _ daughter_. _ His eye caught on a brightly colored object sitting on the corner of the desk. “Try these.”

Keith caught the tossed object and raised an eyebrow. “Sticky notes?”

“You can figure something out.”

A beep from Adam’s datapad cut off any response and he looked down. “Oh, shit, right.”

Keith was already doodling on the top sticky note. “What?”

“I need to go pick up Zoé. Although… hey, Keith, want something to do?”

“Aren’t summer camps super picky about who can pick the kids up?”

“Shiro’s made sure all five of you are on her pick-up lists since we adopted her. Plus,” Adam added with a pointed look at Keith’s ears and Voltron dress jacket he was still wearing, “the only way you get more distinctive than you already are is by flying a Lion over.”

Keith’s ears flicked back in acknowledgement. “If I weren’t trying to not piss off the Federation by keeping the Lions in the Atlas’s bay, I would.”

“It still surprises me every time you say diplomatic things in reference to the Federation.”

“Hey,” Keith pouted as he stood and stuffed the sticky notes in his pocket, “I’m not _ that _ bad at diplomacy.”

“I still remember the time your idea of diplomacy was punching people in the face, so--”

_ “You weren’t even there!” _

“And yet, every time someone asks for embarrassing stories about the Red Paladin…”

Keith gave him the finger as he walked out of the room, leaving Adam to call out “And don’t tell Shiro you’re picking her up on your bike!” through his laughter.

* * *

Keith leaned against his hoverbike, weaving his hair back into its usual Blade-style braid. He pointedly ignored the stares from several parents in the parking lot. Three years of having Voltron partially based off Earth, two of those with the team fully under his command, hadn’t really gotten him used to the attention; he had learned, however, when it was going to be a direct problem. The whispers he could hear even though he wasn’t supposed to were all along the lines of wonder at the distinctive red and black of his jacket, with Voltron’s symbol spread proudly across the back. Most didn’t seem to pay much attention to his ears, despite drawing attention to the Blade of Marmora symbol stitched in a deep metallic purple onto the breast pocket.

Although, the very white-cis-straight couple wearing Industry League hats looked like the type that would never be sending their one point five kids and dog to this camp again. At least this was the last day. 

The doors opened and released chaos in the form of children just as Keith finished his braid. A blur of dark hair and colorful clothes barreled into his legs. “Alaemora Keith! Alaemora Keith!”

He grinned and leaned down to pick her up. “Hey, Zoéva!”

“Why’re _ you _ here? Otousan said he was gonna pick me up.”

“I offered. Otousan’s busy finishing things so we can leave.”

“Do I get to ride on your bike? Can I ride on your shoulders?”

“Yes, and no, not on the bike, but you can while we go check you out.” 

Zoé grinned and giggled when Keith shifted her around so she could swing her legs over his shoulders. “Are we going to the Castle today?”

“As soon as Abu’s done with his meetings.”

He could tell Zoé was sticking her tongue out. “Abu hates those meetings. He has to have them every time Voltron’s on planet and they’re _ boring. _ We should get him out.”

“Abu is still an important part of Voltron’s diplomatic capabilities,” Keith reminded her, “Even if he isn’t actively a Paladin, he’s Earth’s main liaison with other Coalition entities.”

“Because you can’t.”

Keith stopped walking and leaned his head back in an attempt to glare at her, ears turned back. “Hey.”

“Aunt Allura said that last time you were on planet. “Your alaemora Keith has progressed remarkably in his diplomatic abilities,” she said, doing a remarkable imitation of an Altean accent, “But I highly doubt that he would have the patience to deal with the Federation, were he the one staying Earth.””

“Yeah, okay, I’ll accept that. Hey, that’s the check-out table, right?”

“Mhm! With Mister Inguva. Hi Mister Inguva!”

A young Indian man looked up from his seat behind the table. “Hello, Zoé, and uhh… oh my.”

Inguva stood straight and started saluting before Keith sighed and interrupted him. “No need for that.”

Inguva froze for a moment before collecting himself. “Yes. Right. Sorry, uh, Paladin. Sir.”

_ “Please _ just call me Keith. Can I sign my niece out?”

“Yes! Yes, here, you just have to sign your name and address on this form here. And, can I just say, Sir, you probably get this a lot so I’m sorry for repeating, but thank you so much for your part in halting the Imperial invasion three years ago.”

Keith plastered on his best media smile and resisted the urge to grit his teeth. “Just doing my job, Mister Inguva. Thanks for helping with this camp, I hear Zoé hasn’t stopped talking about it.”

Zoé nodded vigorously from her perch. “Uh huh! Abu knows a lot about space already but he said hearing it from me helped him understand stuff he learned better.”

Inguva gave them a smile and waved goodbye. “Thank you, Paladin Shirogane, and goodbye, Zoé.”

Zoé waved goodbye as Keith turned around and started back towards his bike. “He didn’t call you Keith, even after you asked him,” she mused.

Keith sighed. “No one ever does. Something I hope you never have to learn: no matter what you say, people will continue to call you what they want.”

“Well that’s just mean.”

“Yeah, a little. You should always call someone what they want to be called.”

“Well I’m _ always _ gonna be Zoé.”

Keith smiled and set her down by the bike. “Are you?”

“Yeah! I like my name! Mama always said Dada gave it to me, like he gave me to her. It’s pretty.”

“Just like its owner. Now come on, we need to go find Abu.”

* * *

The pair were stonewalled by a guard outside the room where Shiro and Allura were meeting with the Federation’s Prime Council. “I’m sorry, Paladin Shirogane, but Colonel Shirogane insisted they weren’t to be disturbed.”

Zoé pouted from her spot on Keith’s shoulders. “But I wanna save Abu.”

“Sounds like Abu doesn’t want to be saved quite yet, Zoéva. Give him another hour and we can come back and save him. Let’s go see if Uncle Lance needs any help packing up.”

“Is Aunt Veronica coming too?!”

“All of Uncle Lance’s family is coming, even Aunt Rachel. Aunt Pidge’s family is coming, and Uncle Hunk’s, and we’re picking up Auntie Shay somewhere too.”

He could feel her perk up as they stepped into the elevator down to the hangar bay. “Alaemora Krolia and Yorak?”

“Passing by Kunanmora as soon as we can.”

“YAY!”

Zoé excitedly babbled about Yorak the entire trip to the docking bay, where Lance immediately found her some smaller suitcases to move into Lion’s bays. Keith, for his part, had already packed the Wasti-Shirogane family’s meagre luggage into Kuro, so when Zoé refused any help he ended up standing off to the side by the Black Lion. Brown arms soon wrapped themselves around his waist and a familiar chin nestled in his shoulder. “Sometimes I can’t tell if it’s a Galra thing or just a kid thing,” Lance mused, watching Zoé run back and forth between Hunk, Veronica, and the Red Lion, “Or hell, even a “hasn’t spent seven years at war” thing.”

“Sometimes I consider asking Shiro if I was like that at that age,” Keith told Lance, “And then I remember I hadn’t met him yet.”

“She’s got what, two years? Then you can start really comparing.”

“Yeah.”

“You know Allura told me a while ago that she’s got a very similar quintessence to you?”

Keith snorted and his ears flicked back in amusement. “Doesn’t surprise me.”

A crash resounded from the direction of the Red Lion and both of them winced. Lance sighed and grabbed Keith’s hand. “Come on, favorite person of our resident troublemaker, let’s go save our Lion.”

* * *

“You _ know _ you’re not supposed to mess with the Lion’s lockers, Zoé.”

She sat, pouting, on Kuro’s ramp. “But I wanted to see where Uncle Lance was putting everything, and then I found the big box and I wanted to see what was in it.”

Keith sighed. He could feel Kuro in the back of his mind, being entirely unhelpful, and hear Lance’s half-hearted grumbling somewhere behind him. “What’s in it is for emergencies only, when we can’t contact the Castle, okay? So we need to be certain that they’re fully stocked, which means _ not messing with them.” _

“Okay, Alaemora Keith.”

“Thank you. Now, how about we find something a little quieter to do? Did Otousan pack your tablet away?”

Zoé scrunched up her face, thinking. “He did but I dunno where. Can I play on your phone instead?”

“Sure.”

He dug it out of his pocket, causing something to clatter to the ground as it fell out. He glanced down at it at the same Zoé reached for it. “Why do you have sticky notes in your pocket?”

“Otousan gave them to me earlier, said to figure out something to do with them.”

“Did you?”

“Not really.”

Keith paused with his hand half outstretched, watching Zoé flip the sticky notes over in her hand. “The kids at camp liked to stick them on each other’s backs.”

This confused Keith. What was the point of that? “Why?”

Zoé shrugged. “They had things written on them. I dunno what though.”

Keith squinted at the sticky notes for a moment before an idea popped into his head. 

* * *

“Hey, Lance? Why do you have a sticky note on your back?”

Lance blinked at Hunk for a moment before concluding that yes, that string of words made as much sense as he thought they did. “What?”

“Sticky note. On your back. It’s bright yellow.”

Lance reached around and tugged what turned out to indeed be a neon yellow sticky note off his jacket. “”Construction of the Jemison and Lawrence Dyson rings took forty years.” Is someone studying space history? How did this end up on my back?”

Hunk leaned over Lance’s shoulder to look at the note. “It looks like Keith’s handwriting?”

Lance glanced over and pulled another off Hunk’s back. “Shepard Station opened the first working space elevator on September twelfth, 2100.”

They stared at each other for a moment. “...I’m confused.”

“Yeah so am I.”

A giggle echoed from the direction of the Black Lion; Hunk and Lance glanced over to find Keith scribbling on more sticky notes and Zoé waving at them with a pen in hand. They had a pile of sticky notes sitting between their heads in a rainbow of colors. Comprehension slowly dawned on the Blue and Yellow Paladins. 

“Oh. My god.”

* * *

When Shiro and Adam finally made their way into the hangar bay, they were greeted with a grinning Lance. “Hey, Shiro, pretend I put this on your back.”

Shiro took the offered item and stared at it for a moment. Over his shoulder, Adam read the words on it: “Armstrong Lunar Base was established in 2048.”

Lance’s grin widened at Shiro and Adam’s confused looks. “Apparently, with a little help from Zoé, Keith figured out he can sneakily put a sticky note on someone’s back, but he doesn’t know they should say things like “kick me,” so they just have space facts on them. Hunk and I have been roped into helping apply them.”

Shiro and Adam looked over at where Keith and Zoé were situated on Kuro’s ramp. A collection of colors were scattered around them, almost glowing with neon. Keith had a bright blue one in the middle of the Voltron symbol on his back, while Zoé had two yellow ones stuck to her cheeks. Both of them were hunched over with pens, furiously scribbling away. “Okay, that’s adorable.”

_ “ABU!” _

Lance barely sidestepped the high-speed projectile his niece had turned into. Shiro stumbled back from the sheer force, but managed to catch them both before he toppled over. “Hey, kiddo! What’s that on your face?”

Zoé beamed at him. _ “”Curiosity _ landed on Mars on August Sixth, Twenty-twelve,” and _ “SFSS Genesis _ encountered alien life forms in January Twenty-two-twenty.”"

“January fourth.”

“You remember the date?” Keith said, walking up in front of them as Zoé gasped, took the sticky note off her face, and scribbled a four on it.

Shiro shrugged. “I don’t, but Matt does and that seems like the sort of thing he’d have an accurate memory of.”

“Thank you, Abu! Can we leave now?” Zoé was almost bouncing, hanging onto Shiro’s shoulders. “I wanna go get Yorak!”

“One last thing: I wanna know what the one on Alaemora Keith’s back says.”

Keith blinked and looked between the four people in front of him as he reached up and scrabbled for it on his back. “The Red Paladin… _ Lance.” _

The Blue Paladin snickered at Keith’s flustered glare. “It’s not _ not _true.”

Keith grumbled, wadded up the sticky note, and threw it at him, which only caused Lance to burst into full-blown laughter. Adam picked it up from the ground and smoothed it out, curious as to what had garnered that reaction. “The Red Paladin deserves far more hugs than he gets.”

“Then we should give him more!” Zoé yelled, jumping out of Shiro’s arms. 

Keith quickly found himself enveloped in his family’s arms, Lance’s soft grin directly in front of his face. He sighed, but returned the smile. “Love you guys too.”

**Author's Note:**

> random fun facts: Zoé calls Shiro Abu and Adam Otousan because they both started calling each other the words for dad in their own languages around her, so they got switched.


End file.
